What an Instagram Post can do

By Lakkitha Samarakone

I'm Lakkitha Samarakone, 17 years, and living in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I'm currently a high school student and also a youth activist. Recently, I read an article about the project "16 days of activism" organised by the UN to spread awareness on gender based violence and decided to engage with this project through social media. I feel social media is a good source and a platform for activists because it's a quick and efficient way to discuss & make the public aware of the latest global and social issues specially for a country where such issues are not spoken much.

I simply used Instagram and posted a question on my story. The question was what can we do to end gender based violence in Sri Lanka? Immediately, most of my friends (aged between 13 to 21) had replied with captivating answers. Below are answers that my friends had given:

RESPONDENT 1:

"First of all we need to raise awareness in rural areas as well as in the city. Explain why it's really bad & also strict laws need to be implemented to punish the ones responsible & also send the message to the ones that want to try"

RESPONDENT 2:

"Educate people on an emotional aspect where they actually feel it otherwise, it's pointless talking to them since they might not take it seriously. Educating them from our heart rather than spending few hours talking about the topic would be more effective. So, programs or discussions on that level can aware people more."

RESPONDENT 3:

"Not bothering about it is best. If everyone bothers about gender based violence it will never be solved. Just live a normal life. Eventually & naturally people will start living without violence."

RESPONDENT 4:

"By educating on what gender based violence is & by telling people that gender based violence can be emotional, physical & psychological. We can also make people aware about how stereotypes can lead to such violence. We should also make people aware about the fact that not only women face this but also men do face it & in a country where such an issue is not spoken about because it's seen as not that important. So, educating people especially the youth can make a huge change in ending this. In our country where this is not spoken about as much, educating the youth & giving them a voice can help change that issue & this issue can be made more aware & a change can be brought."

RESPONDENT 5:

"In order to combat something like this that's unfortunately en-grained into society. Education & awareness would be the best way starting with implementation in schools as well as for adults that were taught it. Particularly in rural areas. Also legislation can be changed, for example I really think marital rape should be illegal because otherwise it does still to some extent enable domestic violence. As we do work on trying to make things better for women as a lot of organisations I see doing, we need to not lose track of the fact that men do suffer from it too. So while it won't go away immediately, like frankly speaking I don't think we would be alive to fully appreciate a total 180 change, but change has to start somewhere right."

RESPONDENT 6:

"We should start by teaching the children of tomorrow that everyone is equal & each one of us regardless of gender & sexual identity have rights. We should change ourselves to change the world."

RESPONDENT 7:

"Through education & punishment. But more importantly, talking about it. So people know it's okay to open up about violence rather than thinking it's something to be ashamed of."

RESPONDENT 8:

"Stop categorising everything to males and females unless it's absolutely necessary in terms of privacy and security. The moment you quit saying "engineering are for the strong boys and playing doctor are for the innocent girls" I thinks that's when things can take a new twist in perspective in everyone's eyes. Violence? Violence ends with the above being a step cut through grass root levels, because now we can only offer rehabilitation and such programmes to the perpetrator and victims. Yet in order to completely diminish this entirely, we got to target it from scratch and educate the older and young generation within the country."

RESPONDENT 9:

"It's best to treat everyone the same and show that we are all equal and should be treated the way we expect people to treat us. If people get that basic concept in their heads it'll stop all gender based violence and also other problems our society faces."

RESPONDENT 10:

"Prevention should start early in life, by educating and working with young boys and girls promoting respectful relationships and gender equality. Working with youth is a faster method on preventing and eradicating gender-based violence. Forget about the past, we can make sure the new generations are aware about violence which will obviously reduce gender violence. Like when educating teens, we should in-cooperate accounts from victims in order for teens to understand what it really feels like."

RESPONDENT 11:

"Many people say education is the solution which is true. But end of the day, isn't education the answer for many of the leading problems in the world? Education is the solution brought forward by many people to tackle this but, the true problem is in our country’s educational system. Unlike you and me, everyone doesn’t have the privilege of studying at an international school or even a reputed school. So the normal schools that they go to have an absurd way of how they handle students academically. Believe it or not, our country’s system is such, that whether the student passes or fails irrespective, they are promoted to the next grade. This is an absolute joke! Then what? The student looses his goals, no aims & no motivation so, he just plays the fool. Finally, when he comes to an understandable age all he wants is to make money. The easiest way now in Sri Lanka is buy a trishaw. This student has no other objective but to ride this and earn a buck. Trishaws are great and functional but the bad side that it brings to the country is far more. Things like prostitution, drugs, thuggery all of this is brought out by these trishaw society. So what happens to this helpless student? He’s ruined for life and once he’s ruined he tries to get his friends into it as well, effectively we end up with a society that is corrupt. Obviously, this goes way above gender based violence, under that topic things like gender equality, freedom of speech and even effect of law plays a major role."

RESPONDENT 12:

"I strongly agree that punishment is one of the key solutions to this issue. But prevention is better than cure & in our society, if it's changing a culture, then we have to go back to the basics. Kumar Sangakkara's implementation of Think Equal project, where they teach kids as young as 1 or 2 years old in their respective pre-schools that both genders are equal on every single front. This way, they will grow up with values that can prevent either gender turning against each other. Its definitely not the fastest way to eradicate gender based violence. But it is a long term strategy, that is sure to work! Children are the most resilient and flexible and we are responsible for how they are going to be crafted into the future generation. So, it's in our hands to ensure that they grow up with openness, no taboos, and most importantly, equality between the sexes taught at very young ages."

I hope your'll will help me to spread awareness to the public through these answers because as the youth of our country, we really want to change the way our country handles such issues & also the traditional norms in our society that leads to inequality.